MacPherson's Lament

CHAPTER 1

Edinburgh

June 8, 1992

Dear Bill,

There is a silly rumor going around the family that you have graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and are actually setting yourself up in practice as a partner. I suppose that this will settle the betting pool once and for all. I wonder which one of us picked this decade as the probable date of your graduation! Of course I told Geoffrey that he hadn’t a hope of winning in any case; I don’t even think they’d let you stay in law school until 2041. My guess is Mother will win the pot; I’m sure she came the closest to the correct year. That’s probably why she’s gloating about your newly elevated status. A partner, indeed! Reading between the lines of Mother’s propaganda, I deduced that you did not get hired by a real law firm and are therefore striking it out on your own to chase ambulances and draw up wills in the unsuspecting city of Danville, Virginia.

As I recall, your graduation gift to me in days gone by was an IOU, which I could with perfect justice return to you on the present occasion, but I am more gracious than you (also more solvent), and so enclosed you will find a check for five hundred dollars, which I hope you will use to buy a desk or other bits of office furniture for your new establishment, but if you’d rather buy a thousand baseball cards or a collection of Perry Mason videos to instruct you in trial procedure or whatever else takes your fancy, then you have my blessing. (Seriously, Bill, we are all very happy for you. Keep me posted about your most exciting cases. If you can afford the overseas postal rates.)

No doubt you are all aquiver to learn how your baby sister is doing in the capitals of Europe. Well, the capital of Scotland, anyhow. And the answer is: very well, thank you. Cameron is back from the high seas and he’s keeping busy with his flippered friends at the lab while I am attempting to put my Ph.D. in forensic anthropology to some practical use, short of grave-robbing-a time-honored profession in Edinburgh, as you doubtless know. The way Cousin Geoffrey keeps going on about Burke and Hare, you’d think he had stock in the company.

In conclusion, I have just one teensy question about this new law practice of yours. Mother says in her letter that you have gone into partnership with A. P. Hill, which is charming for both of you, I’m sure, except that I had the distinct impression that A. P. Hill had been dead for a hundred and twenty-seven years. I take it, then, that you are the junior partner? I await your explanation of this phenomenon with bated breath.

May you please the Court,

Elizabeth

“Letter from my sister,” said Bill MacPherson to his new law partner, the aforementioned A. P. Hill. “I thought you might like to read it. I’ve already cashed the check, though.”

A. P. Hill scanned the letter without a trace of a smile. “Dead for a hundred and twenty-seven years. People always say that when they hear my name.”

“Surely not always,” murmured Bill. “There are probably scads of Yankees who don’t recognize it at all. Anyway, if it bothers you, you could always use your first name. Amy Hill is a perfectly good name.”

“Amy Hill isn’t auspicious enough for a practicing attorney,” she said, frowning.

“How about using your middle name? Powell is okay. And it’s what your folks call you, isn’t it?”

His partner shrugged. “Only because I refuse to let anyone call me Amy. I just think initials have a more aggressive and professional sound. Especially for someone as harmless looking as I am.”

Bill observed his partner appraisingly. She was just over five feet tall, with short straw-colored hair and the sort of angelic face that necessitated the showing of her ID card rather oftener than most people her age were required to do. “You do put one in mind of a high school cheerleader,” Bill conceded. “At first glance, I mean. For those who haven’t seen your pit-bull tactics in trial class. But that gleam of blood lust in your green eyes ought to tip off anybody who’s paying attention. I expect you come by it honestly, what with all those cavalry charges in your bloodlines.”

Bill was referring to the original A. P. Hill, one of Robert E. Lee’s generals during the Civil War. The present bearer of that name was the warrior’s great-great-granddaughter, who had chosen to fight her battles in court rather than at the head of an army. The family resemblance was there, though, in her no-nonsense manner and in the easy self-confidence that she displayed in legal combat. Her grades in law school had been better than Bill’s, and he still marveled at his good fortune that she had agreed to go into partnership with him. He was sure she could have snared a lucrative position in an established law firm if she’d wanted one. But she said that if she didn’t strike out on her own, the family would make her practice law with her cousin Stinky. She wanted to make it through her own efforts, she said, without family influence.

Bill had never met his law partner’s family, but he knew that she came from somewhere west of Roanoke, and, although she didn’t speak of it, he could well imagine a rural law practice in southwest Virginia, replete with drunk drivers and bad-check cases. There would already be a couple of well-established attorneys there who would get all the business, leaving newcomers to scramble for the lowest-paying leftovers. Here in Danville there was at least a chance of some criminal cases, which were A.P.’s specialty, and a population of sufficient size to provide them with the more prosaic legal business of wills and no-fault divorces, which would generate most of the revenue for the firm of two.

Fortunately their rent was modest. The newly graduated lawyers had set up headquarters downtown in an old bank building which now housed a florist shop, a travel agency, and a number of small apartments on the two upper floors, one of which had also been rented by Bill MacPherson, because it was the cheapest accommodation he could find. A.P., who preferred to see criminals in court rather than in the stairwell of her building, had moved into a more secure and luxurious high rise on the outskirts of town.

The law office consisted of three small rooms partitioned with wallboard out of one large one-on the landlord’s theory that three rabbit hutches ought to rent for more than one decent-sized room. The frosted glass door opened into a reception area, containing as yet no secretary. On either side of this waiting room, doors led to the tiny offices of Bill MacPherson and A. P. Hill, each furnished with a secondhand desk and bookcase, law books, a typewriter, and very little else. The new attorneys had their independence, an optimism that might pass for recklessness in more conservative circles, and less than a thousand dollars to get on with. Business had better become brisk very soon.

“So, partner, how was your morning?” Bill asked.

“All right, I guess,” said A. P. Hill. “I went down to the courthouse and introduced myself around. I put my name on the list of attorneys who can be assigned to court-appointed cases. How did things go here?”

“Crowd control wasn’t a problem. I called the business college to see if we could get a part-time secretary that we could afford. They’re sending over an applicant this afternoon.”

“Good,” said A.P. “I’ll interview her. You’d fall for the first hard-luck story you heard, without bothering to find out if she could type.”

“Well, ask her if she suffers from claustrophobia.” He looked at the walls, little more than an arm’s length away. “It could be a liability in this office.”

“This is what we can afford,” said A.P. “If we don’t get some business soon, we may be operating out of a packing crate on the sidewalk.”

“Probably against city ordinances,” said Bill. “I would offer to go and chase an ambulance, but unless I get my car tuned up, I probably couldn’t catch one.”

A.P. glanced again at Elizabeth’s letter. “At least we got some more money. I hope you remember to thank your sister for this.”

“It’s high on my list of things to do this afternoon,” Bill promised. He held up a cardboard box. “Speaking of that check, I also got a little something to brighten up the office. I went out to deposit the check from my sister, and as I was coming back, I happened to look into that flea-market place… I’ll just put it on the table in the corner.” He took his newly purchased prize out of its wrappings of newspaper and set it on the white plastic table scrounged from Goodwill. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s dead,” said A. P. Hill. “Did you actually pay money for that monstrosity?”

“Yes. Elizabeth suggested that I spend the money on office furniture, but when I saw this fellow here at the flea market, I just had to have him.”

“What flea market?”

“That store down on the corner. I think it used to be a grocery store, but now some antique dealers have set up stalls inside. So, anyhow, I went in, just out of curiosity-”

“Do they have any old weapons in there? Swords, things like that?”

“I didn’t notice,” said Bill. “Probably. The place is full of junk. Why?”

“Oh, no reason. So you found this dead animal in drag-”

“The taxidermist says that he’s an authentic Virginia groundhog. And he wasn’t killed for display. He’s a road kill,” Bill added happily. “And his little black robe is handmade by the taxidermist’s wife. Isn’t he marvelous?”

A. P. Hill frowned into the leering face of a large marmot, who was stuffed and mounted in a standing position. Moreover, it was dressed in a black satin gown that might have been judge’s robes or graduation attire. “Hmm. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to buy a filing cabinet or two instead? Maybe some office supplies?”

“Oh, there’s enough money left over for that,” Bill assured her. “Especially if we buy secondhand stuff. But this fellow was too wonderful to pass up. He’s one of a kind. I thought we’d call him Flea Bailey. Get it? Like F. Lee-”

“Yes, well. Keep him in your office, okay, Bill?”

Bill remained cheerful and unoffended at this dismissal of his prize. “I thought I would,” he agreed. “After all, you’ve got a mascot of your own, haven’t you?” He pointed to a Lucite paperweight on the otherwise empty desk. Embedded in the clear plastic was a round bit of bone, like the center shank in a slice of country ham.

“It’s a present from my folks,” said A.P. “Family tradition. When the original A. P. Hill went off to join the Confederacy, his mother gave him a ham bone as a good-luck piece. He kept it with him all through the war.”

“And that’s why he made it through safely, you think?”

“Well, no,” said the general’s namesake. “Actually, he was shot by Union soldiers in 1865 and didn’t survive the war. My great-grandmother was born a couple of months after he died. But he was a hell of a general, so I guess my folks figured it might inspire me to greatness in the law.”

“If they’d throw a little business our way, that wouldn’t hurt either,” Bill pointed out.

His partner shrugged. “Cousin Stinky takes care of most of the family’s legal stuff. But maybe our newspaper ad will bring us clients.”

There was a knock at the door, and a well-dressed woman came in, carrying a beribboned potted plant.

“There!” said A. P. Hill triumphantly. “A client already! Unless you’re here to interview for the secretary’s job?”

“Neither, I’m afraid,” said Bill MacPherson. “Hello, Mom.”

As she set the housewarming gift on the secretary’s desk, Margaret MacPherson managed a tight smile. “Hello, sweetheart,” she said, hugging her son. “Actually, I am a client. Bill, could I see you in private?”

A. P. Hill spent the next couple of minutes profusely apologizing to her partner’s mother, whom she had met briefly at graduation, but had not recognized in the present instance. Their exchange of pleasantries was cordial but strained. Margaret Chandler MacPherson looked anxious, as if she could hardly keep her mind on the conversation. Inventing urgent tasks to attend to, A.P. retired to her office, leaving Bill to confer with his distracted relative. In her clean but spartan office, A.P. sat in her swivel chair for all of one minute before restlessness overtook her. Then she dusted a spotless desk, adjusted books that were perfectly straight, and resharpened all her pencils. Pride did not come cheap, she thought, looking around the shabby office with its threadbare green carpet and its battered old desk.

With her grades and family connections, she could have taken a job at any number of prestigious law firms in Richmond or northern Virginia. There the offices would have been considerably grander, but that would have meant working for the Silverbacks, as she liked to call them. She’d found Silverback in a National Geographic article on gorillas. It was the term used for the large, overbearing males who attempted to dominate the group, and right away she recognized the similarity between gorilla troops and law firms.

Her new partner, Bill MacPherson, although large and male, was definitely not a Silverback. He would be hard put to dominate anything more assertive than goldfish, but he was reasonably competent, rather good-looking once you got used to him, and unfailingly even-tempered and amiable. For someone who considered coffee one of the four major food groups, the contrast of Bill’s placid temperament was invaluable; it counteracted her own tendencies toward anxiety and overwork. The legal world might see William D. MacPherson as the crucial member of the team, the presentable young male eligible for membership in the old-boy network, but A. P. Hill knew for a fact it was her talent and ambition that would make the firm succeed; Bill was along for decoration and emotional ballast, and because her one weakness was a genuine affection for hopeless innocents. Somebody had to see that he didn’t starve, she told herself.

Besides, A.P. had a hobby that was more or less a secret, and she didn’t want the pressure and visibility of a high-profile law firm. There’s no telling who might see you there. Sleepy little Danville was both convenient and private for her extracurricular activities.

When the telephone rang, A.P. considered posing as the secretary they didn’t have, but she couldn’t figure out how then to take the call as her real self, so she abandoned pretense and said into the receiver: “MacPherson and Hill. A. P. Hill speaking.”

“Yes,” said a woman’s voice. “I saw the announcement in the paper that you had just opened for business, so I thought I’d give you a call. I need something rather unusual in the way of legal services.”

A. P. Hill glanced apprehensively in the direction of her law books. “Could you be more specific?” she ventured.

“Well, I’d like to put an attorney on retainer as a birthday gift to my husband.” The woman laughed. “My name is Frances Trowbridge. I know it may sound strange to give your husband a lawyer as a present, and of course he has legal representatives for his business, but this is different.”

“Is it a personal problem?” asked A.P., still puzzled.

“It certainly is! He’s driving me crazy. My husband is a born complainer, you see, and he’s always fuming about something-wanting to know if it’s legal. Suppose we’re out in the car, for instance, and he sees a policeman drive by in a patrol car. If the policeman has a cigarette in his hand, Calvin will want to know if it’s legal for policemen to smoke while on duty. Or he’ll wonder if the taxpayers will have to pay for repairs to the seat covers if the policeman burns holes in the car’s upholstery. Well, there’s no use asking me things like that. I’m no more of a lawyer than Calvin is, but that doesn’t stop him from droning on about it until I could scream. So finally-I mean, I have put up with this for years-I hit upon a possible solution. I want to hire an attorney for one year to look up every one of Calvin’s stupid questions.”

“So, as I understand it, you wish to put us on retainer to research legal questions for Mr. Trowbridge.” A. P. Hill was making notes on a yellow legal pad.

“Exactly! So if Calvin suddenly wants to know if he can make a citizen’s arrest of someone taking up two parking spaces at the mall, he can call you, instead of boring me with it. You can look it up for him, give him a precise legal answer, and he’ll be happy. Can you do that for a yearly flat fee?”

It wasn’t as if there were any other cases demanding their undivided attention. “Well,” said A.P., “what if we gave you fifty questions a year for a flat fee, and then billed you for anything over that amount?”

Mrs. Trowbridge considered the offer. “That ought to be about right,” she declared. “Once a week is about as often as he gets a real bee in his bonnet. The rest of his quibbles are things he’ll forget five minutes later. And some of them probably won’t take you any research at all. Can you do it for $2,500?”

Visions of rent receipts danced in her head. “Yes, Mrs. Trowbridge,” said A. P. Hill. “My partner Bill-er, Mr. MacPherson-will be delighted to handle the matter for you. Why don’t you come in later to work out the details? We can type up a document for you to give Mr. Trowbridge on his birthday.”

She was still tinkering with the rough draft of the Trowbridge agreement when Bill MacPherson walked in, looking like a clairvoyant on the deck of the Titanic.

“Has your mother gone already?” A.P. asked him, still intent upon her work. When there was no reply, she looked up. “What’s the matter, Bill?”

“Got my first case,” he said woodenly. “I tried to talk her out of it, of course, but she insisted.”

“What is it?”

Bill managed a bitter smile. “Apparently,” he said, “I am handling my mother’s divorce proceedings.”

A.P. set the pen down and stared at his stricken face. “Not an example of your family’s bizarre sense of humor?” she ventured.

“I thought of that. ‘A little lawyer humor to brighten up the old office-warming?’ I said cheerily to Mother. But she gave me that look that I haven’t seen since Elizabeth and I used Miss Clairol on the cat, so I think we can assume that she is not joking. Imagine the surprise of the only son, yours truly. I mean, they’ve been married nearly thirty years. You’d think they’d be resigned to one another by now.”

“I’ve heard that men get strange once they pass fifty,” said A.P. thoughtfully. “They seem to want loud plaid jackets and sports cars the size of roller skates. I suppose that the old wife doesn’t fit the new image.”

“Mother was rather vague about that,” said Bill. “I gather that something pretty disastrous has transpired at home. Lipstick on the collar, perhaps. Anyway, the old girl’s gone ballistic. She wants me to file the papers right away, ask for alimony, and generally take poor Dad to the cleaners.”

“I don’t think that handling divorces within one’s own family is such a good idea, Bill.”

“I know! And I said so like a shot! But then she misted up on me, said she supposed one couldn’t trust any man if her own son wouldn’t even come to her defense in her time of need. She went on in that vein until I was ready to disembowel myself with the tape dispenser. Finally I just said I would represent her. I’d have said anything by that time. Probably have chipped in for a hit man if she’d asked me to.”

A. P. Hill shook her head. “You must learn to be firm with people, Bill. Besides, didn’t it occur to you to recommend counseling before they break up a decades-old marriage?”

“She wouldn’t hear of it. Said something like, ‘I’m not the one who needs professional help!’ ” He groaned. “I suppose I’d better review the stuff we have on divorce procedures.”

“You have a client coming in this afternoon. I was just drafting the agreement.” Briefly she told him about Mrs. Trowbridge and her querulous husband.

“She’s putting us on retainer?” said Bill. “Let me get this straight. Mr. Trowbridge asks whatever silly questions he wants and I root around in the law books and come up with an answer for him.”

“Right.”

“And he doesn’t want to sue or press charges against offenders or anything like that? He just wants to know-for his own satisfaction?”

“Apparently so.”

“And she’s paying us for that?”

“Fifty dollars per question. In advance. Almost the whole year’s rent.” A.P. permitted herself a triumphant smile. “I’ll just go and type this up so that we’ll be ready when she gets here. Don’t forget to write to your sister and thank her for the check.”

“My sister!” cried Bill. “You’d better believe I’m going to write her!”

“Share the bad news, huh?” said A.P. “How do you think she’ll take it?”

“You know that legal phrase in loco parentis?”

“Yes. And that’s not what it means at all.”

“It ought to,” muttered Bill. “It describes her perfectly.”